Book IV

Dear SM Summer Reading Group,

I'm back in the US now, back with my computer (no more iPad keyboard!), which means these posts can come like rapid-fire now.  Apologies for the lag between posts, varying wifi signals proved to be more of an obstacle than I had expected.  On to the soap-opera style drama of Book IV!

Need to Know

• Anna and Dido have their heart-to-heart, not unlike sisters or close friends of any era might have, regarding what Dido should do about her feelings for Aeneas.  It is important to remember, however, that those this conversation has some familiar & universal-like qualities to it, that there is an awful lot of pressure on Dido, being Queen and all, to make the right choice both politically and strategically for the people of Carthage. Entering into a marriage with Aeneas would simultaneously marry the Phoenician and Trojan people, blending the two societies in the new city of Carthage.  Secondly, Dido needs to do some soul-searching about what is morally right in respect to her husband Sychaeus. Remember that we found out he had been murdered back in Phoenicia in a family feud, essentially forcing Dido to set out for a new land where she could make a new beginning. Her fear in falling for Aeneas is the disrespect that this would do to Sychaeus.  
• Dido goes for it.  She has a lot of pressure pushing her to follow her heart: Anna's encouragement, the powerful arrow of Cupid, and the conniving/dueling force of Juno and Venus who decide to team up in this instance in order to make this work.  The storm results in a night in the cave, which is as good as a marriage (if you know what I mean). 
• Remember Sychaeus, her deceased husband?  Turns out that she had been using his murder as an excuse to not get back into the game for some time, long enough, in fact, to push off other suitors in the surrounding area that were looking at North Africa's most eligible bachelorette.  Following through on her relationship with Aeneas REALLY rubs local king and suitor, Iarbas, who has been pursuing Dido for quite some time, the wrong way. Iarbas calls Aeneas "a second Paris" - the kind of guy who would just unlawfully snatch up someone's wife for his own interest and start the Trojan War over it. It just so happens that Iarbas is the son of Jupiter. Iarbas whines and Jupiter delivers.  Aeneas gets the kick in the pants he needs to get up and get back to his mission.
• This is all just too much for Dido.  Let's keep in mind though that this woman has been through a lot.  First there was the murder of Sychaeus, then there was her self-imposed refugee status, then the pushing off of numerous suitors in North Africa (despite her loneliness).  She finally gives into Aeneas, she opens herself up, and look what happened. She builds a pyre out of all of his belongings (classic), and eventually impales herself atop the pyre (serious dramatic effect).  Here's the aria from an opera that Henry Purcell wrote about the affair of Aeneas and Dido. If the tune sounds familiar, it was renamed and used as the theme to Band of Brothers on HBO. 
• There are parts of Book IV that are just plain heart-wrenching, and if there was ever any question that this poem captures human emotion that is old but true, well this would be the book that puts it all out there. Though dramatic, it's a well-known story in so many ways and poignant because of this familiarity.

Poem
Pick any dialogue in Book IV and run with it.  There are so many to choose from, whether it's Dido's honest confession to Anna and her honest response, or Aeneas' break-up with Dido, and the degree of disbelief and then anger with which she works through in her response. It would be great to perform Book IV in a dramatic reading - so much to go on and so accurately composed!

Old but True
I mentioned this earlier, but Book IV just happens to be chock-full of situations from a plot line in the majority of romances throughout the ages.  Part of me is left wondering who used Vergil's writing as inspiration for later romantic dramas (certainly Ovid, maybe Shakespeare, what about modern movies and novels?). The success comes from the elements of Book IV that are familiar and relatable, regardless of the surrounding circumstance of queen and kingdom, and the over-dramatic pyre suicide.  Isn't this what makes celebrity romances and break-ups so appealing to the masses, even in 2014? You've got the hype of the "power couple" and the consequence of the public eye, mixed with the entirely relatable & human experience of two people in love who then break things off. Captivating.

Roman
One thing that may be less relatable and more Roman to the modern reader is the role that the gods play in this human romance. Venus sent Cupid in with a love drug to break down her mental resolve in the first encounter between the two. Juno and Venus hatch the plan to marry Aeneas and Dido in the cave because it serves their mutual interest/investment in the two (Venus in Aeneas and Juno in Dido). Jupiter sends Mercury to launch Aeneas' ships and break things off once Iarbas whines. Mercury returns to Aeneas in a dream to remind him to get a move on when he begins to delay. All of this outside influence on a personal matter is exhausting! Certainly, Romans of Vergil's 1st century Rome did not expect that the gods were as concerned or involved with their own romantic relationships, but considering that there were deities and rituals and sanctuaries for lovers in the Roman religious tradition, certainly gods were involved on some level. What's different, perhaps, is the level of entertainment that gods seem to get out of Aeneas and Dido, as though they are watching a good drama unfold, but have the right to step in at anytime.

One more thing - here's a cool little bit of Latin that's often discussed in Book IV (there's actually a note in your text about it). In Mercury's warning to Aeneas, he says varium et mutabile semper, femina (ll.710-11) "variable and changeable always: a woman".  This detached commentary on feminine characteristics and emotions employs two neuter adjectives (varium and mutabile) to describe a feminine noun (femina).  In Latin, nouns and adjectives agree in gender, just like in Spanish or French.  Why the disagreement? Some believe that this choice is as good as a statement on Vergil's behalf that femina is equivalent to animal or a neuter "thing" - an object or a species so different from man that it is almost inhuman. Others see the choice of the neuter as a way to classify a type and avoid agreement that might be mis-read as adjectives describing this specific woman, Dido. Whatever the reason, it is intentional, and it's pretty cool that by reading the Latin text, you can see a nuance to the language like this that in the English text one probably passes over.  It's also interesting to think about how a translator might represent the intentional disagreement in translation, if he chooses to include it at all.